There's a lot, lot more to be said regarding the genuinely surprising depth of ARMS's core one-on-one (or hectic two-on-two) fighting mode—which is presented as a "Grand Prix" in single-player, a standard arcade-like run through opponents culminating in a slightly disappointing end boss, who serves to illustrate how the game's designers used up their creativity on the ten playable characters.

There’s handful of dazzling set pieces in the final third of Genesis Noir, none less so than the crescendo itself. I don’t think it's a spoiler to describe this as a dance across the cosmos, or that color does eventually explode into the game. Like the earlier duet, it offers another opportunity to wild out, to simply throw the cursor across the screen and see what emerges. It gets close to the loose-limbed and improvisatory nature of jazz—an opportunity to revel in the game’s singular and beautiful kind of cacophony. While an undeniable audio-visual marvel, the moment also transcends spectacle, hinting towards something profound about the act of creation, be that cosmic or indeed personal.

As someone who grew up playing the everliving life out of Castle Crashers, don’t overlook this one. It’s different enough not to fully replace the love of your life, but it’s an excellent addition to the “adorable knights beating the crap out of everything they encounter” genre titles like Castle Crashers popularized. It works fantastic in this 2.5D style, and I’m surprised nobody has really tried this before. [Highly Recommended]

A police procedural version of XCOM with a good story, funny writing, and only bite-sized battles.

If you are someone who wants a more linear or cinematic, story-driven campaign, Crimson Desert might not be for you. However, if you loved the sense of freedom and discovery that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had, then Crimson Desert is the next big game in that genre. Pearl Abyss has truly created something special here, that I suspect we’ll be talking about for years to come.

Palia is one of those games that puts fun and joy above everything else. It features an in-depth building and crafting system. There are plenty of quests to lose yourself in, and the world is big, bold, and beautiful. It’s the perfect way to introduce someone to the world of MMOs, and has a massive community of lovely fans. You can’t help but smile whenever you boot up Palia, and you’ll likely find your new favorite thing after trying it out for just a little while. [Highly Recommended]

I got what I wanted out of Dawn of War III. It pays the right amount of reverence to the source material and tells exactly the sort of story I like in 40K: important, but contextualized in the big, scary, slightly stupid universe Games Workshop has created for itself.

A satisfying new chapter that develops the story of 'Control' but doesn't add much to the playground.

What I will say is that the game’s uncompromising sensibility shines brightly at its conclusion. I won’t spoil the exact details but it’s a masterclass in unceremonious restraint which lands harder than any grandstanding finish. Unto The End understands that terrible things happen and the world often just keeps moving. This doesn’t necessarily undermine the tribulations of its bearded character—his body will carry the violence of this passage for a long time to come—nor does it diminish my own frustrations. After everything, I’m left with the sound of his heavy exhales in the fading light of this harsh and snowy setting; foregoing any kind of traditional pay-off feels like the perfect way to end this story, almost making the gruelling journey worth it.

Tacoma isn't Gone Home, but that's an impossible ask. Tacoma is, however, a clever game with a thoughtful story to tell about life, people, and technology.

This experimentation, from place to place and zone to zone, is what Sable is about at its core: doing things and obtaining proof that you have taken their experience in; that you have contemplated them. In a world where games signal their value to you through in-game advertisements and a bombardment of prompts to keep playing, this laconic approach stands out starkly. But any game whose direct mission is to think about the world, and to think about it deeply, should probably have a special place in our heart.

The only gripe I have is that the game’s levels are pretty linear and small in scope. And even the demon gimmick used to solve detective mysteries is on the simple side. All this to say, I wish the game had more complex dungeons and mechanics. Still, Raidou’s story is interesting enough that it had its hooks in me. For all its flaws, I couldn’t put Soulless Army down, and enjoyed the 35 hours it took me to beat it. [Recommended]

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is a game that will require a lot of your time. If you find yourself struggling to stay seated and interested in a game for a long period, this may not be the one for you. But if you’re hoping to learn more about grand strategy and conquer the lands before you? Grab a seat and dive in. [Recommended]

The result is a game that still feels like history, but only history as told through the shaded maps in a textbook.

So far, it’s a game whose core element—exploration—is often engaging, but because much around it is boring, I need the exploration to be more engaging, and the game’s feature gating hinders that. Again, maybe that changes by the end. But it sounds like it’ll take a long time to get there. Supposedly that's a selling point.

The Evil Within 2 ultimately feels a lot like Friday the 13th Part 2. The original Friday the 13th might get all the credit for being the origin of a famous series (and having a fantastic cliffhanger), but it's just an okay movie. Part 2 is where the series found its footing, moving beyond an empty clone of a popular horror subgenre. The pieces were all there, but the deck needed to be reshuffled to made it click. The Evil Within 2 clicks.

It’s such a beautiful world to explore, and its characters all feel so alive. As long as Yellow Brick Games can follow through with updates to fix the core complaints? Eternal Strands has everything required to be a winner. It just needs that extra coat of polish to really bring out its true potential. [Recommended]

I survived Mars. My reward was a self-sustaining economic engine serving no end greater than its own perpetuation. It was dozens of millions of miles from Earth, and I felt like I’d gone nowhere.

That, in the end, is Artifact in its iron heart: a machine for capturing metagames.

Sloclap could have delayed Rematch to get it in, and I don’t think anyone would be hurt. But they opted to give us the game without it and avoid delaying putting it into our hands. And what they delivered is an excellent experience. Hopefully, they’ll add some single-player-related modes down the road, but for now? I’m good. I haven’t enjoyed a purely multiplayer game like this in a while. And once the crew can get on all at once, I’m looking forward to us taking over the pitch. [Highly Recommended]

It’s best moments are familiar because they are part of that sturdy, underlying Total War formula, but even here they quickly become repetitive. Yet when it attempts to do something new and to be something new, Thrones of Britannia seems to lack any kind of compelling original vision for what a Total War game can be.

No matter how much Lara changes in the course of this adventure, she's still an instrument of hegemony. This world remains a constructed fantasy, one designed specifically for her...Tomb Raider is and will always be Lara Croft’s playground. And as uninteresting and fundamentally regressive as Lara’s tale is, that’s the only story that this franchise can tell.

By the end, I was disgusted, angry, and exhausted. An uncommon set of emotions for a game you’d want to recommend to other people, even if they bounced off Life Is Strange.

It's an incredible amount of fun, so long as you're not looking for a great single player sports RPG.

Playing Absolver scratched an itch I didn't even know I had. It's similar enough to the things it takes inspiration from to make me comfortable, but different enough to keep me playing. Above all, it got me excited about the fighting game genre in a way I haven't been since the first time I played Super Smash Bros. or read about Thrill Kill. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Donut County takes a whole bunch of simple things, and one central game mechanic (around… that hole) and spins an inventive, creative, satisfying game out of them. The result is a pleasure to play and a really admirable piece of game design.

One of the highest compliments I can pay Bugsmax is that when the game warned me I'd hit a point of no return in the story and I'd no longer be able to complete any unfinished side quests, I panicked because I really wanted to finish them. Could I find a way to delay my review? Hmm. Sadly, my deadline for writing this piece, written in the midst of pandemic and election, meant that wasn't an option—I had to push forward. And so, reluctantly, I did.

All of this contributes to what may be Wild Hearts’ greatest achievement over Monster Hunter, its ability to resolve the narrative tension of the hunt. Wild Hearts is set in Minato, a small, forgotten corner of an otherwise war-torn world. Rival clans battle over territory and succession rights, brutalizing both each other and the very ground upon which they walk. This has, in time, led to an abundance of refugees and those who refuse to participate in the war machine. Your hunter is one of those people. In a brief conversation with another character, they ask why you left your home to hunt kemono, and you are offered two options: “I don’t want to talk about it,” or “Because they asked me to hunt people instead.”